Leila checked her ad on Tryst. She knew how to advertise herself, but the issue was not her work so much as the market. There was only a sprinkling of viable daddies at any given time, and sometimes she felt as if she’d gone through every single one. She checked her messages, filtering through a number of “hey babe” deadends; a few from men too elderly for a long term arrangement; and a few from men who seemed to be fishing for a drawn out conversation, rather than an actual meeting. She shut her laptop. There was no good whoring to be done this evening. Suddenly, she felt her pocket vibrate. She grabbed her phone to see who had messaged her. There were two messages, she realized. One from an unknown number, and another from Miranda. Miranda: Expect a message from “Nasir” (xxx)xxx-xxxx. He’s one of my regs. If you don’t have time, could you point him in the direction of someone else you trust? x (xxx)xxx-xxxx: Hey, it’s Nasir, Miranda’s friend. Hopefully she prepped you beforehand lol. Is this Leila? Leila trusted Miranda to send her number only to trustworthy clients. They had gotten into camming together seven years ago when they shared a flat and were low on money. They’d pooled the money they’d made working shitty retail jobs to buy a proper internet connection and invested in a camera they could share. The two young women performed together, hoping to capitalize on the girl-on-girl market. The hours were grueling and for the first months the pay was minimal, but they would console themselves with a post-work glass of boxed wine over a tray of oven-baked french fries. Miranda was like her sister, who she also occasionally fucked for money in front of an audience of strange men. Men who at times felt threatened by their sizable strap-on, yet other times got off to that same humiliation. The two had never made incredible money, but at the time it had felt like big money. There were some nights they finished with $600 each. One night they managed to scrape $1,000 and decided to celebrate by reserving a table at a rooftop restaurant they’d eyed covetously for semesters, wanting to try one of the $20 cocktails. Finally, they had made it. They wore their most expensive dresses and pretended to have always been rich. They ordered a champagne bucket, only to have their private celebration crashed by two men who intercepted their check and sent over a second bottle of champagne. Leila and Miranda had wanted to enjoy the satisfaction of paying their own way, but in the end, weren’t entirely unhappy to be able to keep the thousand and enjoy their fancy celebration somewhat free of charge. Free aside from the occasional glances and waves they did their best to ignore as the men jockeyed for their attention from across the restaurant. Miranda had moved abroad post university to attend grad school in Spain. Leila stayed in LA…